What am I giving my life to?
A question every person should ask. It’s a question that is often overshadowed by things like “what am I going to do with my life”. The truth is, if you aren’t giving your life to the right thing, what you do with it won’t really matter. The months of May and June are filled with graduations and people completing seasons of their lives. Doubtless these people are being asked the question “what’s next”. For many, they probably have no idea how to answer that question. So I would like to pose another question to ask our high school and college graduates. What are you giving your life to? You’ve gotten your degree or diploma, what are you going to use it for? Is it going to be used for your own personal happiness, for living the American dream? Or perhaps you are going to make it about helping others, curing cancer, stopping aids, bringing justice to victims of human trafficking; all amazing causes. The problem is that often times even if we give ourselves to big, beautiful causes, we burn ourselves out. Because the source of what we are giving our lives to drains us. Don’t get me wrong, I wish more of my generation were doing things that actually matter instead of just trying to do the American dream. It drives me nuts how angry and upset I see people over sports games and yet bring up a topic like abortion, trafficking, or aids and these same people will quickly change the subject.
Because ultimately the majority of people are giving their lives to being happy.
They are giving their lives to the idea that happiness is the goal. The simple truth is, happiness doesn’t satisfy. It’s an emotion; a passing state of being. The truth is we shouldn’t always be happy. We shouldn’t be happy when we hear of Indian children working in quarries, of people in African dying from starvation and aids, of American girls trapped in human trafficking. Happiness is a poor excuse for a goal in life. If we pursue it we shut doors on helping others, because helping others won’t always make us happy. Sometimes it will break our hearts. Sometimes it will require us getting into the muck of the world in order to pull others out.
My challenge is not just to the class of 2014, but to all, what are you giving your life to? Are you giving it to the only one who is worthy to receive your everything? Are you giving it to Jesus? To the one who knows you better then you know yourself? Are you giving it to the one who will be able to use it to it’s fullest potential? God’s plan really is best, and it should be at the forefront of everything we do. It may mean doing something “foolish” like using the degree you just got to go live in a slum in Kenya teaching African children. It may mean going to remote villages in Thailand helping farmers grow their businesses. It may mean getting a good job in the US and loving the people in your office, the person who God places right in front of you. It may be that you are exactly where God wants you, my question is have you asked Him?
For the class of 2014, this is your chance to begin something new, will you start by asking the Author of Life what He would have you do?
Sure, you can advance humanity, cure cancer, stop the spread of aids in Africa, but when you stand before God at the end of the age, I think He will be far more concerned with whether you obeyed His voice. With whether you went left when he told you left, whether you listened for His voice. He will be far more concerned with whether you fully gave your life to Him.
Will You?
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